Last week, turned television on, and saw. being solemnly asked by Piers Morgan, for their deep opinions on what was billed as The Crisis In The Middle East (not Syria, not Egypt, not Jordan, not Iraq, but Israel's successful attempt to suppress incessant rocket fire from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, tutti quanti), three officious talking-heads.

To wit:

Alan Dershowitz (presumably representing, not nearly as effectively as he seems always to think, Israel), Reza Aslan (representing the careerist Reza Aslan, with a side-line in posing as Defender of the Faith, that Faith being poor misunderstood much-maligned Islam), and Robin Wright (who has come far from her days of her apartment on Harvard Street. and simply by toiling away as a (mere) reporter, has risen to the status of foreign-policy sage, and she was no doubt supposed to represent the Neutral Middle).

Within 30 seconds I heard Robin Wright say "everyone knows what a final settlement [between Israel and the Arabs, or "Israel and Palestine" (as some now like tendentiously to say) will have to look like."